The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), which conducts the civil services examination (CSE), will now have to disclose the raw score and cut-off marks of candidates across all categories, sitting for the exam.

UPSC on Thursday asked the supreme court (SC) to dismiss its own petition which was had filed with the court  in September 2008 against the judgment of a division bench of Delhi high court – which had asked them to disclose the marks.

A group of students had questioned the UPSC's civil service exam's preliminary results. They alleged that the results are not fair and accused the commission of corruption.

“Many students with lower scores have made it to the list, while those with higher marks have been left out. We just wanted them to tell us the exact score,” says Ajay Mishra, who appeared in the UPSC 2010 exam.

The commission conducts a three-tier exam every year for entry into the higher administrative services. But it just declares the list of the selected candidates based on examination and the interview. The students had been demanding greater transparency in the procedure by revelation of the cut-off marks along with individual score of students.

Students claimed that there were huge irregularities and fraud in the civil services examination, conducted by the UPSC. The commission has also never revealed the parameters on which the scaling is carried out as they do not reveal the actual marks (raw) scored by candidates.

“UPSC itself asked the court to dismiss their petition. It said that their examination pattern is changing to CSAT from 2011 in which they are removing the optional paper which will remove scaling,” said Chitranjan Kumar, who was part of the group seeking transparency.

Students, who failed who alleged irregularities in the commission, has also filed various Right to Information (RTI) applications. One of which revealed that the examination churns out bogus roll numbers during the selection process, which increased over the years. The RTI found that the number of fake roll numbers issued in the name of non-existent candidates increased from 92 in 2003 to 4,245 in 2010 out of four lakh candidates.

After today’s decision and the new examination system, students say they are expecting more transparency in the system of UPSC.